


Hanging by a Moment

by Cinaed



Category: CSI: Las Vegas
Genre: Episode Related, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-11
Updated: 2006-11-11
Packaged: 2017-10-08 03:37:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinaed/pseuds/Cinaed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He quickly loses track of time -- minutes, hours, they all seem the same to him. He figures that's probably something he should be concerned about, but he can't bring himself to care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hanging by a Moment

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for "Post-Mortem."

After the trial, Greg feels even worse than he did after the inquest, despite the words “We find the defendant, Greg Sanders, not guilty” that keep ringing in his ears, or perhaps_because_ of those words. After all, if Greg was wholly innocent, would he feel this knot of guilt that twists his stomach? 

Somewhere to his left, he hears Demetrius James’s mother sob amidst the never-ending click-click-click sounds of the news cameras. He can’t bring himself to look and see the look of devastation on her face, not again, and so instead he turns to the right and finds himself looking into Nick’s concerned face. 

“Come on, G, let’s get you home.” Nick’s calm voice, thankfully, drowns out the cameras and the sobbing, and Greg nods even as the knot of guilt twists still tighter. He wants to go home and-- and-- he doesn’t know what he’ll do when he gets home, he just needs to be anywhere but here. 

Nick’s hand is gentle on his shoulder, tugging him further away from the cameras and towards the parking lot. There are other sounds now, and Greg knows that there are reporters directing questions at him, but the words all jumble together, and even if he wanted to answer someone (which he doesn’t) he cannot pick out a single question from the dozen being hurled at him. Only Nick’s firm mantra of “No comment, no comment” is discernable in the rush of noise that assaults his ears. 

Another hand touches his other shoulder, and now he looks into David’s face, the other man’s expression tight and filled with concern. Greg struggles to smile, just so David will know he’s not about to have some sort of breakdown, and even if the smile barely curves his lips, the effort seems enough to ease some of the tension from David’s face. 

Nick squeezes his shoulder and says louder, with almost a growl to his voice, “No comment, let us through!” even as Warrick appears from among the multitude. 

Warrick flashes Greg a quick smile of reassurance, and then takes the lead, parting the crowd like a modern-day Moses. With Warrick in front of him, Nick on his right, and David on his left, they form a human triangle, a triad of protection from the news reporters who keep hurling questions at him. 

Somehow they make it to the parking lot, and apparently they’ve decided that Greg isn’t allowed to drive himself home, because the trio has gently nudged him over to the passenger side of Nick’s car. 

He licks his lips, tries to speak, and gets the words past the lump in his throat after the second swallow. “I can drive myself home,” he says, not because he actually thinks he can, but because he really ought to protest the fact that they’re babying him. 

They seem ready and willing to ignore him, and he doesn’t press the issue, too busy fumbling with the door handle. It’s only after the second time the handle slips out of his grip that he realizes his hand is both trembling and slick with sweat. “Crap,” he mutters, bending close to the handle, and sees Nick grin from the corner of his eye. 

He is still trying to open the door when someone shouts. Over the course of the past week, Greg’s come to know that furious voice far too well, and he cannot quite keep from flinching at the pure loathing in Aaron James’s voice. He should say something, he thinks, even if it’s something as clichéd as “I’m sorry for your loss,” because the trial is over and he doesn’t think his lawyer would object now. Greg should--

“Shit,” Warrick says suddenly, interrupting his thoughts. 

Before Greg can lift his gaze from the door handle to see what’s earned the sharp edge in Warrick’s voice someone body-checks him, hard. He slams into the car’s side; the bones in his wrist grind as his hand twists at an odd angle, and his head hits the windshield with agonizing force, so it takes him a moment to realize that there was a gunshot mixed in with the ringing in his ears. 

“What--” His head is spinning, and white-hot pain radiates up from his wrist. Whoever body-checked him is still pinning him against the car, leaning with all their weight against him, so it’s hard to breathe, and he struggles to speak. “What’s--”

“_Fuck_.” 

Greg tries to think of the last time he heard Nick say fuck and comes up with never as the answer before he breathes a sigh of almost-relief when the person pinning him against the car suddenly moves away. Now he actually can turn and view the scene. 

Aaron James is on the ground, his arms twisted at a painful-looking angle as Warrick keeps him restrained, with Nick hovering over them, eyes hard, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides as though it is all he can do to keep from lashing out at the teenager. A gun is on the ground, next to Nick’s feet and out of Aaron James’s reach, and Greg squints at it, but his right eye is still watering from the impact with the windshield, and he can’t tell what type of gun it is. 

Apparently David was the one who body-checked him, because he’s standing closest to Greg, although with his back to him. His shoulders are hunched and his head is bowed, and Greg can see the tremors shaking the other man’s frame. 

His wrist is still throbbing, but he ignores it for the moment, because he’s just been shot at, and David has as well -- guilty by association, apparently, or just in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Hey,” he begins, already searching for some words of reassurance, and that’s when David’s knees buckle and it’s only Greg's dive forward and arm that snakes around David’s waist that keeps David from falling face-first onto the blacktop. “Hey!” This time it’s directed towards Nick, who tears his gaze away from Aaron James’s struggling form. 

David sways almost drunkenly in his grip, and if Nick hadn’t grabbed David’s shoulders just then, Greg knows they both would have fallen to the pavement, because Greg is still dizzy and that’s really unhelpful when you’re trying to keep someone upright. David’s shaking in their grip, and this close, Greg can see how blood has leeched from his face and how impossibly pale he is. 

“Easy, easy,” Nick says, and something in his tone makes Greg blink. 

It takes him a moment to realize why; the softness in Nick’s voice is what he uses on victims he’s trying to keep calm. It takes him another second to understand the reason behind Nick’s tone, but the dress suit underneath Greg’s arm is warm and wet, and when Greg looks, he sees the dark red stain spreading on David’s stomach. Now his knees really do buckle, and somehow Nick maneuvers them both so that Greg is kneeling with David propped up against his chest. 

David is still trembling, and now his breath is rattling in his throat, but he doesn’t say a word, just stays slumped against Greg’s chest, which means he’s probably going into shock or something. Greg finds himself staring at the back of his head and wondering when David had gotten so many gray hairs. It’s a pointless, useless thought, as useless as the panic he feels rising up and choking him. Getting hysterical isn’t going to do any good, and yet he hears himself start to hyperventilate, and it is all he can do to press his face against the back of David’s neck and mutter, voice breaking halfway through, “You’re not supposed to be a goddamn hero, David.”

Everything gets blurred at the edges, and his chest aches so much that he can’t gather enough breath to say anything more. It’s only when he hears Nick’s voice, distant, telling him that an ambulance is almost here that he suspects that maybe he’s in shock too. 

He closes his eyes, keeping his cheek against David’s neck, because for all that the skin there is damp and clammy in a way that means David is definitely going into shock, Greg can still feel David’s sharp, uneven breaths and that reassures him somehow. 

Then someone is tugging at him, pulling him away from David, and he releases his grip with reluctance. Deft hands cradle his injured wrist, and someone asks him if he’s in pain, but when Greg turns his head to answer, the ache in his chest suddenly shifts to such intense nausea that he vomits without a word of warning. 

The questions stop and instead fingers are feeling his pulse. Then there are more voices, all which thankfully fade away when he closes his eyes. The darkness beneath his eyelids numbs even the throbbing of his wrist, and he welcomes it. 

*

When he wakes up in the hospital, he’s informed that his wrist is badly sprained but not broken, the cut on his forehead (and he hadn’t even noticed the cut) had required two stitches, and that they want to keep him overnight in case he has a concussion. When he asks after David, he’s informed that “Mr. Hodges” is still in surgery. 

Nick is his first and only visitor, looking rumpled and strained, and lets him know that the surgery will probably take awhile -- he doesn’t know the exact details, but he knows the bullet had nicked something important -- but he’s sure Hodges will be all right, and he’s told the doctor to tell Greg as soon as Hodges is out of surgery. 

Greg just nods and then unsubtly mentions being tired, and Nick retreats from the room, leaving Greg to his thoughts. He stares up at the white-washed ceiling and for a moment wishes he believed in God, because then he could pray and hope for divine intervention to get David through the surgery. 

The thought is fleeting, and instead he just thinks about David. David, with his trademark smirk, his bright blue eyes, his boyish delight over things like cars and childhood stories, his near-constant sarcasm. David, who had just looked at him and nodded slowly after the death of Demetrius James when Greg had cleared his throat and said quietly, “I, uh, need some space.” David, who hadn’t pressed him about a second date, even as the days had passed into weeks, and then the weeks into a month or two. David, who took a bullet for him. David, who might be dying even as Greg stares at the painfully white ceiling. 

Apparently pacing his hospital room while under observation for a concussion earns a scolding from a nurse, but Greg mostly tunes her out, sitting back down on the bed and waiting for news about David. He quickly loses track of time -- minutes, hours, they all seem the same to him. He figures that's probably something he should be concerned about, but he can't bring himself to care. 

It’s nighttime when a doctor, looking even more rumpled than Nick had and with extra lines of strain at the corners of his eyes, comes to his room and lets him know that while it was touch-and-go for a while, Mr. Hodges will be all right, and he’d be allowed visitors the next day. 

The following morning, he is told he’s free to go, and immediately heads over to David’s room, where he smiles so hopefully at a nurse that she knuckles under and lets him in, even though it’s not visiting hours, although she warns him that Mr. Hodges will be a bit loopy from the painkillers. 

Sure enough, David’s eyes are unfocused when Greg comes into the room, and though his lips twitch, it’s into a vague smile, with nowhere near his usual vibrancy. Still, his breathing is deep and even, and when Greg sits down next to him and takes his hand, his hand doesn’t shake. 

Greg takes a breath, and then says lightly, “You know, if you wanted a second date, you could’ve had just said something. You didn’t have to take a bullet for me to get my attention.” 

Judging from David’s slow, sluggish blink and slight frown, though, he doesn’t get that Greg’s joking, and after a moment, David mumbles, voice barely a whisper, “Your attention?” 

Greg shakes his head and squeezes David’s hand lightly. The painkillers really have done a number on David’s usually quicksilver thought process. “Never mind.” 

But David keeps going, words slightly slurred. “So, the second date. Was thinkin’ Thai. And a movie. Dunno what kind of movie though, since y’like crap.” His vague smile gains strength at Greg’s indignant snort. 

“I like good movies. Just because you have a weird, fiery hatred of Will Ferrell doesn’t mean my taste in movies suck. We can watch, uh, a thriller or something. You like movies with complex plots, so maybe something--” He stops talking when he realizes David’s eyes are closed and he’s either asleep or half-way there. 

Greg just sits there and watches him for a moment. David is still pale, painfully so, with shadows like bruises under his eyes, and Greg has never noticed how many lines of age and strain David has around his eyes, but now, looking closely, Greg is almost tempted to count them. 

Instead he reaches out and brushes the soft strands away from David’s forehead, a finger lingering on the vein in his temple. There, Greg can feel his heartbeat, which is slow and steady. Some of the tension between his shoulders that he hadn’t even noticed was there eases, and he lets his finger linger there for another moment, his other hand still holding David’s. 

“So, it’s a date,” he says, but softly enough that David doesn’t stir, and sits there, feeling David’s steady pulse beneath his touch, until a nurse finally shoos him out.   



End file.
